Isle of Canna: photo blog
All photos © Kirsty Hughes
It’s a grey, calm, chilly day as I board the ferry from Rum to the Isle of Canna which lies to Rum’s north-west, the most westerly of the Small Isles. Canna is under five miles long and one mile wide – and fairly flat. But it’s a beautiful, green island, with diverse wildlife especially seabirds, steep basalt cliffs where eagles fly, sandy beaches, rocky shores, stacks and cliffs where puffins, guillemots, great skuas, kittiwakes and more nest. And stunning views back to Rum and across to Skye to Canna’s north-east.
There are only 18 permanent residents on Canna which was bequeathed to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981. But there are places to stay for visitors and the island has a friendly, calm feel to it. I’m staying in a camping pod, a mile’s walk from the pier. There’s no electricity in the pod but it’s midsummer so I hardly notice and the views more than make up for it.
Three of us arrive together at the small campsite, up a hillside and below some cliffs. I glimpse a flurry of birds, some large wings, above us. It’s a sea eagle or perhaps two. But then we realise that the sea eagle is attacking a golden eagle. It’s dramatic and disturbing in equal measure. I take a blurred snapshot of the golden eagle on the ground higher up the hillside. It looks to be almost cowering.
The golden eagle takes off again, turning a somersault under the sea eagle now above it and they disappear over the ridge. Seeing such a majestic, powerful bird suddenly vulnerable leaves me pondering both how we see nature and our own human lives.
The sun comes out, turning the afternoon colourful out of the grey of morning. I seize the chance to walk to the stacks and cliffs where the puffins nest. They are on the Isle of Sanday, joined to Canna by a small bridge, the two islands form a beautiful natural harbour between them.
I pass the distinctive St Edward’s church, currently closed.
And soon there are views across cotton grass, gently-moving in the breeze, to the mountains of Skye.
A mile or so further on, sea stacks and cliffs come into view with the mountains of Rum as their backdrop
I’m lucky with the timing. The puffins are just flying in after a day at sea and some land on the cliff top near me. They’re smaller than I imagined. And look askance as some of their fellow birds come in to land in rather ungainly fashion near them. They’re colourful and characterful and endlessly funny to watch.
In a cold, rainy moment the next day, I’m in the shearing shed at Canna’s farm – it has some electric plugs (a chance to charge my phone) and some tables and chairs – with a kettle to make a cup of tea and leave a payment. There are five people from a yacht in there sheltering too. We’re all cold. I ask where they’re from – Russia, says one reluctantly, Ukraine and Latvia say two more, not looking like they want to talk. We divert onto talking about puffins and when I show them my pictures from the day before they are all suddenly wreathed in smiles and grins, the awkward moment past.
Fortunately, for pretend campers like me who aren’t intending to cook, Canna has a restaurant, with an excellent reputation not least for its seafood taken fresh from the bay. Café Canna is open in the summer months and draws custom from locals, visitors and the many yachts moored in the bay. But when I arrive, there’s a power cut. Usually, solar, wind power and a backup generator assure Canna’s power needs. But they’ve had problems recently and are still figuring out why.
At the next table, someone pulls out a guitar and there are beautiful songs and music for an hour or more – until the power returns, and dinner is on again.
The glimmering colours of a midsummer sunset light the track, as I walk back to the campsite – the dusk light of Scotland’s north that never seems to darken fully at this time of year. I linger and take photos. The atmosphere is full of a summer night’s magic. Back at the campsite, I see the black outline of a hare on the ridge above me.
Yet, in my pod, I don’t sleep too well, a new place, too many first impressions. But there are compensations. From midnight to first light around 4 a.m. I hear a corncrake with its distinctive scratchy call. It’s striking, if noisy – and, for sure, no one can complain about being kept awake by a corncrake. There are, I’m told, 14 breeding pairs on Canna – endangered birds possibly turning the corner now in Scotland.
The next morning, there’s low mist and low light as I look down across to Sanday from my pod. But it’s still beautiful. I head off towards the harbour and along a track, past highland cattle with utterly gorgeous calves.
Beyond is a black and white sandy beach, at its end a steep rocky outcrop, so-called prison rock, with a small, ancient tower crumbling near its top – reputed to be where a medieval lord locked up his lady, to keep her from others, in the late 17th century.
On the way back, I visit Rhu church built in 1911 – one of three on Canna and Sanday. It’s being restored but you can still visit its simple, light interior and see up close its distinctive, rocket-style tower.
Next, a coffee outside the café, watching the harbour, ever-changing as the tide gently ebbs and flows.
Then I head towards the western half of Canna. There’s a brisk wind, flowers blooming, birds calling, lambs, looking curiously at me, near the rocky edge down to the sea. Inland are high cliffs where on my way back I see two more eagles swooping through the sky – perhaps two more beyond them.
I get to Tarbert bay, half way westwards along Canna – it’s wild, with no-one around. I was hoping to walk north from there to find the around two thousand year old souterrains, underground chambers, that lie further on through a boggy stretch of ground. No-one is sure what they were used for. But my knee is still objecting from my having tripped and landed on it the day before, so I turn back, putting it down as a good reason to return to Canna soon.
The following day, I move for a night to Canna bunkhouse, which is in Kate’s cottage, up the hillside and with even more stunning views down across Canna and Sanday to Rum and with glimpses of the mountains of Skye, and perhaps the mainland, further east.
By chance, I have it to myself. I wake at 5 a.m. – it’s early but it’s also just past sunrise.
So, I’m drawn out to see the sun as its first rays of light start to touch the Rum mountains and Canna too.
I head down to the harbour. It’s quiet, apart from a cuckoo calling from the woods behind me. Further on, I pass the between 7th to 9th century Celtic cross. It’s missing two arms from, so the story goes, cannonball practice in the Napoleonic wars.
There’s few other remains obvious of A’Chill, once the island’s main settlement. Canna, like the other small isles, felt the impact of the clearances with hundreds being made to leave in the mid-nineteenth century. I walk on through the overgrown graveyard, a precious site for nesting birds with signs underlining walkers must keep to the one narrow path.
As I come out by the water’s edge, five rabbits on the road look startled at my arrival and disappear into the undergrowth. I crush a snail’s shell underfoot, then realise the road is covered with empty, scattered snail shells. The culprits are probably in the next grassy field where there’s a dozen or more oystercatchers who take off as I pass.
It’s only 5.30 a.m. still, there’s no one around. I go to the 24 hour honesty shop and make a cup of coffee, then sit outside with it, watching the harbour, the yachts, the light growing. In a few hours, the ferry will take me on to the Isle of Eigg. For now, Canna in the quiet dawn is where I want to be.